If you're bored, possibly..

It’s sad that we all live on this isolated island. Sometimes it seems like there’s nothing to do. Well, leave it to the people who’ve lived here their whole lives (including me) to inform you on what things are actually pretty fun. There are a lot of things to do on this island, actually. We’re just not willing to see it. I’ll point out a few options you can choose to keep your life on Saipan less mundane and boring.

School always seems to take up a lot of our personal time, but having fun doesn’t technically mean going out somewhere. Instead, why not run through the sprinklers on a hot Sunday afternoon? True, it’s quite adolescent, but there’s nothing wrong with bringing out the child in you to have a little fun!

If the family’s been in the house, working non-stop, a simple barbeque could possible bring out the fun with your family; talking, taking pictures, and eating. Sounds good to me!  If you’re the kind of student who has enough quality time with the family and want to hit it up with some friends, going to the street market on Thursdays can be pretty fun, too. Basically what you do at the street market is hang out with friends, eat, and possibly make new friends. It’s quite stimulating, if you get my drift.

If you and that special someone want to hang out, the both of you can always catch a movie, or go get dinner together. There are quite a few good restaurants on Saipan that can provide a good time. But if you’re single, it’s okay, just grab a handful of friends and go bowling! Yes, bowling on a Saturday night, sounds pretty fun to me. I’m pretty sure that both bowling alleys, J’s neat Micro Toyota, and one behind Shenanigans near the I ♥ Saipan store.   

So, to make myself clear, here is the list of fun things you can do on Saipan that I’ve mentioned earlier:

Run through the sprinklers, have a barbeque, go to the street market, catch a movie, grab dinner, and go bowling. 

I like music.

        So I've been listening to English music now. Haha, hard to believe, I know. But mostly rock. I probably may never get used to rap music.. I'm just saying. ANYWAY, I've been listening more to like Fall Out Boy and The All-American Rejects. Some Relient K, Switchfoot, uhmmm, Blink 182? Probably more, though. I can't remember (if you know me, you know that). 

        I like music that expresses how I feel. I listen to happy music, and occasionally some really sad, slow music. Right now, I'm not the happiest person, nor am I really as happy as I usually am. Eh, things have changed a bit since the beginning of the school year. It's more personal than what I'd like to share, so I'm gonna keep it as that. 

        School is distracting me from my listening time... more like my listening time is distracting me from my schoolwork! Pandora is an awesome website. It's an online radio that lets you listen to the artists that arouse your interest, so you don't have to listen to these crappy songs that make you want to shoot yourself in the head. 

     Pandora is actually where I start to recall all the old bands that I used to really like. Bands like Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, Panic! At the Disco, etc. It brings back so many memories, actually. It's quite nice to hear the music that reminds me of my childhood (or younger days). 

        Sooo, I have nothing more to say- I'm gonna go now. Have fun listening to your music! Tell me about it if it's good! (:

That's small. You're small.

Scientists have come to the conclusion that protons, electrons, and neutrons are the smallest particles. But they’ve often wondered what holds those particles together and what causes them to have negative, positive, and even no charges. This curiosity led to the discovery of the two fundamental forces: quarks and leptons.

            Quarks are divided into six flavors according to three generations of matter. The six flavors or the six kinds of quarks can be characterized by their particularly funny names: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom. Quarks have electric charges in units of 1/3s or 2/3s. Quarks do not exist freely, or on their own. They do not like to be separated from each other so all quarks much be bound to another by the exchanging of gluons (particle forces that keep the quarks together). They always travel in pairs or in threes. The same goes for the antiquarks. A hadron is a type of quark. They are particles that interact by strong forces which are baryons and mesons.

            Leptons are another one of the two fundamental particles. There are six leptons as well as well as quarks. They are their own particles. Electrons and neutrons are classified as leptons.

            Antimatter particles are the corresponding particles to matter. Although its mass is the same as matter, its sign or charge is different. Every particle in the universe has an “anti” particle that compliments them. “Anti” meaning the opposite charge.

            Scientists have played around with trying to figure out how the universe was created. They’ve come up with the “Big Bang” theory which believes that the universe was created when particles of matter collided with its antiparticles with the opposite charge. With a huge explosion, the universe was created; stars planets, solar systems, and the universe in general. The Large Hadron Collider is created to try and discover more about that theory. It lies 574 feet below the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is designed to collide proton particle beams.

            The Large Hadron Collier was created by European scientists in the hopes of testing high-energy physics. The project costs approximately 9 billion United States dollars. The tubes that exchange particles are colder than the space between the stars, which is extremely cold!

            Scientists have yet to discover exactly how the universe is created, or if their hypotheses are correct or not. But there are still much, much more information they have to obtain in order to have a solid idea of how the universe was created, and how we all exist.

One of My Favorite Shows. Part II

The Mythbusters did prove plausible of this experiment in a small scale, but now they use a bigger container to make “doubly sure.” Using a 10 liter glass container, about the size of a small fish tank, the Mythbusters place plastic and about 20 antacid pills inside. It works, but the Mytbusters, being as they are, take it to the next level and double the amount of tablets to from 20 to 40. The 40 tablets of antacid only produce 40 psi, which is not what they expect to happen. The amount of pressure is only doubling by 80%. They conclude that the size of the container does affect the pressure.

            The Mythbusters decide to move on to the actual-scale experiment. They start out with 22000 antacid tablets. While setting up the experiment, Adam tells us that when the tablets react with water, one of its byproducts is carbon monoxide, so there’s a high risk of suffocation. Luckily, Buster, their test dummy, is there to take safety precautions. With the 22000 tablets combined with 350 gallons of water, they’d thought it would work, but a small leak was detected, and the experiment had to be redone. The source of the leak was coming from the sink and the toilet installed within the cell. They had to “eliminate the variables” to make sure another leak would not occur. They decide to go “the extra mile” and do something that wouldn’t be realistic in a jail environment. This time, they 72000 antacid tablets plus 28000 store-bought tablets adding up to the 100000 tablets they decide to use.

            Jamie explains that the problem with this experiment is that we don’t know when or if it’s going to go off. For safety, they stay behind a thick glass shield and watch the experiment from meters away. In the end, the experiment is successful; it does pry open the door of the cell. Unfortunately, no human could survive the pressure being produced by the carbon monoxide expanding inside the plastic. Buster, the test dummy, was crushed. If the pressure could bend a steel door hinge, it could indeed press a human to death.  

            In the overall conclusion of the “Antacid Jailbreak” myth, Adam and Jamie declare it “BUSTED.” First, there would be a leak (from the sink or toilet), letting the pressure escape. Second, the amount of antacid tablets is most likely not realistic in a jailed environment. Third, the pressure needed to burst open the jail door would definitely crush the inmate to death.

            Adam and Jamie didn’t seem to have remaining questions about this experiment, and neither did I. It seemed to have explained itself in the end. It was pretty funny to watch, too. 

One of My Favorite Shows. Part I

The Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, are a couple of scientists who look for myths to prove legitimate or, in their words, “BUSTED.” This week, Jamie and Adam set out to prove if the “Antacid Jailbreak” myth is plausible or not.

            The “Antacid Jailbreak” myth is one Jamie found. The Mythbusters explain that a prisoner had escaped his jail cell with the use of 1/4^th of an inch plastic, a 10-year’s supply of antacid pills, and water. The inmate apparently lined the whole cell with the plastic (with him outside of it), and mixed the antacid pills with water to create enough carbon monoxide, or CO² gas, to expand the plastic, eventually breaking open the cell walls. But their big question is can a massive amount of carbon monoxide produced from a pile of bubbling tablets really budge bricks and medal?

            Jamie and Adam start by testing out the kinds of pressures the antacid tablets produce when exposed in water. Of course, they start out in small scale, to take caution. But before they test out the pressure, they build the 10 ft. long, by 7 ft. wide, by 6½ ft. high standard jail cell to test out in their final experiment.

            One of the Mythbusters’ first tests is a volumetric test to see how much gas is produced by the antacid tablets. They have a set of flasks connected by tubes to each other. The first beaker is filled with a fair amount of water; when Adam puts an antacid tablet in, the water and the tablet react, creating carbon monoxide. The gas expands through the tube leading it to the next flask measuring the amount of pressure, pushing the water to another set of tubes, into a beaker which measures how much gas is produced. Confusing, right? The whole point of this experiment is to simply test out how much volume is produced with multiple antacid tablets.

Adam and Jamie find out that one tablet produces 75 milliliters of gas. When they dropped two tablets in the water, the amount of gas more than doubles, past 160 milliliters, on to about 275 milliliters. They asked if they doubled that amount, the gas would more than double. Indeed, the amount of gas more than doubled by adding two more tablets to the equation.

           The next step was the pressure test. Using the same method as Jamie and Adam used with the volumetric test, they find that one antacid tablet produces 1.9 to 2 psi, or pounds per square inch. They asked if pressure, like volume, increases what would happen. They conclude that just like the volume test, the pressure test more than doubles the amount by adding one more tablet, as well. The overall conclusion with their small-scale testing is that they may be able to crack a jail cell with a few antacid tablets.

So yah, Curie.. for Curieous?! Ahaha, JK. Don't read this. ;)

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw on November 7^th, 1867. She was the daughter of a secondary school teacher. At the age of 15, her mother and sister died of different illnesses. She graduated high school with the highest honors. She seemed to have suffered depression, at the time because she was too tired to do anything. Her depression was supposedly caused by the tragic deaths of her sister and mother. Because of this, her father sent her to the countryside. She then moved to Paris, France.

While looking for a laboratory, she found her husband, Pierre Curie. Together, they studied general physics. She earned Licentiateships in Physics and Mathematical sciences and gained her Doctor of Schience degree in 1903.  She also was the professor on the School of Physics. After the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place and became the new Professor of General Physics and the Faculty if Sciences. Se is the first woman who held this position. She attended the University of Paris where she was also appointed the Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute.

Because of where she stood, she had to undertake much teaching in order to earn a livelihood, even with her husband. When Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity in 1896, it inspired Curie and her husband with their analysis which led to the isolation of plutonium and radium. 

Curie developed methods for the separation of uranium from radioactive residues. In order to do this, she had to do some careful study of its properties (its therapeutic properties in particular). After further study, she promoted the use of uranium to help relive suffering. In her lifetime Curie was presented many honorary science, medicine and law degrees and honorary memberships. When her husband was still alive, together the Curies were awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 for their. They earned half of the Nobel prize because Becquerel, who discovered uranium, was awarded the other half. Marie Curie received another Nobel Prize, in Chemistry this time in recognition of her work in radioactivity in 1911. United States President Harding presented Curie one gram of uranium in recognition of her service to science, on behalf of the women of America.

Marie Curie discovered the element radium. It changed the how scientists think about matter and energy. Also, because Curie studied intensively in the subject of uranium and uranium use, she led the way to a new era of medical knowledge and treatment of diseases. 

FRECKLES!

I hate my freaking freckles! I don’t understand why me of all the people in my family has to be the one with the freckled-up face. I’m tired of it. They say that freckles come from a large amount of time exposed to the sun. Well, of course I’m going to be exposed to the sun for a large amount of time because I like on a freaking island!

            Freckles are usually genetic. But it’s a skin mutation (yeah, that’s right, I’m a mutant). Surprising enough, I got my freckles from my mother’s side. Strange thing is that she’s Chamorro; Chamorros are not usually the type of people to have freckles, but for my family, it’s normal. A lot of my Chamorro side have freckles, but they’re not as massive as mine are. Mine are all over my face! Not just on my nose or maybe even somewhere on my cheeks. No, my freckles are all over my face… well, besides my forehead, but still. That is a lot of freckles.

I hope when I get out of high school, I’ll be able to stay out of the sun for a while, so I can lose some freckles.

            I read that you can visibly lighten, and even remove freckles from your body by rubbing some lemon juice on the areas containing them. So while I was in Hawaii this summer, I bought an excessive amount of lemons, not telling anyone what it was for. I cut them in half and brought them in the bathroom with me every night. I rubbed them on. NOT the best idea. Considering it was me performing that, I was bound to get some in my eyes. I quit after a couple weeks, first, it wasn’t working, and second, it was too painful. Those things sting!

            So I just decided to put some sun screen when I went out in the sun, to lessen the amount of sun damage to my skin. I have yet to master my freckles, maybe I can even accept them some day, but until then, I’ll be trying to get rid of them little buggers!